Project management and development management

Project management

As the figure below shows, HERMES distinguishes between traditional project management and project management with agile execution.

The solution development can be traditional or agile:

• Traditional product management supports traditional development management;
• Project management with agile execution supports agile development management.

Agile development management

Agile development methods are not project management methods, but rather development management methods. Projects under HERMES must fulfill certain framework conditions, such as compliance with governance, the smooth embedding of the project in the existing planning and controlling processes of the core organization (fundamental mission of HERMES), and common language/uniform terminology. Agile developments without a corresponding project management framework do not fulfill these requirements. Agile methods and frameworks are therefore embedded in HERMES project management.

The figure below shows the HERMES phase model with agile development management.

The understanding of roles in project management with agile development is based on both traditional project management and agile development methods. The project organization works according to traditional project management, the execution organization according to the chosen agile method. The user representative acts as an interface between the project and execution organization.

Further information on HERMES and agility can be found in the document "Agiler Leitfaden – Projektmanagement" (in German), which is an extension to this reference manual.

Traditional/agile development management

The solution development in the project can be either traditional or agile. In practice, however, there are cases in which a project is undertaken with a combination of both approaches.

This requires appropriate tailoring in the initiation phase, as the selected scenario and the execution structure plan must be adapted. The figure below shows two examples of such combinations.